So an "artist" by the name of Iani Papadopol recently held an exhibition in Romania called "UpDate 3D Loading". It was a local hit because the "paintings" he showed off were, for a guy nobody had ever heard of, amazing.

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Turns out there was a reason for that. He'd stolen them.

The images turned out to be video game concept art from some of the biggest and best names in the field, including Daniel Dociu, Craig Mullins, Mathias Verhasselt and Sparth (click those links to be taken to galleries featuring their awesome work).

We've featured the concept art of Guild Wars 2 here twice before, showcasing the talents of…
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Papadopol simply took some of their existing images, as well as those from other artists, printed them off on canvas and held the exhibition. Worse, the exhibition was held with the intent of selling the pieces.

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It's a double-whammy of a crime; not only is he stealing work from respected artists, but much of that work is also the property of major publishers, making it even more serious than a mere act of artistic plagiarism.

He was quickly caught by alert online fans, not to mention some of the artists themselves - who were understandably a little surprised/concerned - but not before local art critics could hail "his" work as "giving shape to three-dimensional art".

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To those local critics, you should really check out more video game concept art. There's a reason he stole it. It's often incredible.

UPDATE - Here's a blog created in 2009 containing "conceptual art by iani papadopol". It actually contains conceptual art by other artists, such as the above-mentioned Craig Mullins and Daniel Dociu.